1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a handling of a plurality of registration data in a telephone apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method of handling a plurality of registration data and a telephone apparatus for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a portable phone at present, a destination name and its phone number are previously registered in an abridgment dial memory. When a desirable destination is to be called, the desirable destination is selected from the abridgment dial memory and the call originating is performed. Thus, the user can originate a call to the desirable destination. By such an abridgment dial function, a user of the portable phone needs not to learn the phone number of the desirable destination.
Generally, this kind of portable phone has a large screen section. When such an abridgment dial function is used, a plurality of destination names and their phone numbers are displayed on the screen section. Therefore, in order to select the desirable destination, a scrolling operation is first performed until the desirable destination is displayed on the screen section. Next, a cursor is set to the displayed desirable destination name. Then, determination is last performed. Thus, the desired destination phone number can be determined and a call can be originated. In this way, in the conventional portable phone, many processes must be performed to perform the call originating operation.
On the other hand, in this kind of portable phone, a destination name and a phone number are displayed as a pair. However, it is necessary to indicate whether this phone number corresponds to a phone in a home or in an office. Therefore, in the conventional portable phone, the user cannot easily understand that the user can reliably take a contact with the destination by originating a call during which of time zones.
Also, there is a case where the identical destination has a plurality of phones and each of the phone numbers of the phones is individually registered, that is, where a plurality of pairs of destination name and phone number are registered for the identical destination. In this case, the respective pairs are individually and separately displayed in the screen section with no relation. Thus, it is troublesome to find the desired destination phone number.
In addition to the above conventional portable phone, a TV phone is known in Japanese Laid Open Utility Model Application (JPU-A-Heisei 4-78877). In this reference, the TV phone includes a memory section, a display section, a selection switch and an automatic call originating section. A plurality of icons are stored in the memory section to distinguish of a desired destination. The plurality of icons are displayed as a list on the display section. The automatic call originating section reads out a phone number corresponding to the icon selected by a user using the selection switch from the memory section and performs a call originating operation using the read out phone number.
Also, a telephone is described in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 9-83630). In this reference, the telephone an image display unit 13, a touch panel 14, a storage section 5 and a control section 6. Image icons are displayed on the image display unit 13. When one of the image icons is touched through the touch panel 14 so as to select a destination, the control section 6 refers to a table 5A of the storage section 5 to retrieve a phone number and ends the phone number on a telephone line.
The present invention is accomplished to the above problems. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a method of handling registration data and a telephone apparatus for the same.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of handling registration data and a telephone apparatus for the same, in which a call originating operation can be simplified.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method of managing and using registration data and a telephone apparatus for the same, in which the registration data are grouped into blocks and a plurality of second data corresponding to every first data can be displayed to be identifiable.
In order to achieve an aspect of the present invention, a telephone apparatus includes a display unit and a storage unit for storing a plurality of registration data sets randomly registered. Each of the plurality of registration data sets includes a destination name and a phone number of the destination. A grouping section groups the plurality of registration data sets into blocks. Also, a display control section controls the display unit such that at least a part of each of the plurality of registration data sets is displayed in units of blocks in a display mode.
Here, the grouping section may group the plurality of registration data sets into the blocks when a new registration data set is registered on the storage section. Instead, the grouping section may group the plurality of registration data sets into the blocks in the display mode.
The display control section divides the block of the registration data sets into sub-blocks in the display mode, when a number of the registration data sets of the block is more than a number of data which can be displayed at a time on the display unit. Then, the display control section controls the display unit such that at least a part of each of the plurality of registration data sets is displayed in units of blocks while each of the blocks of the plurality of registration data sets is displayed in units of sub-blocks.
The display control section may control the display unit such that the phone numbers of the plurality of registration data sets are displayed in units of blocks.
Each of the plurality of registration data sets may include an attribute data indicating an attribute of a destination phone corresponding to the phone number. In this case, the display control section desirably controls the display unit such that the attribute data of the plurality of registration data sets are displayed in units of blocks. Also, it is desirable that the attribute data is displayed as an icon.
In such a case, the telephone apparatus may further include a call originating section for originating a call to one of the phone numbers corresponding to a specific icon in response to specification of the specific icon of the displayed icons in the display mode. Instead, when the icon is allocated with a numeral to be displayed, the telephone apparatus may further include an operation section having a plurality of operation elements, and a call originating section for originating a call to one of the phone numbers corresponding to the numeral of the specific icon in response to an operation of the operation section corresponding to the numeral of the specific icon of the displayed icons in the display mode.
The display control section may control the display unit to display a call origination image when a call originating operation is being performed. In addition, the display control section may control the display unit to display a call arrival image when a call arriving operation is being performed. In this case, the display control section retrieves one of the plurality of registration data sets corresponding to a call originating side and controls the display unit to display at least a part of the retrieved registration data set.
In order to achieve another aspect of the present invention, a method of handling registration data in a telephone apparatus includes the steps of:
randomly registering a plurality of registration data sets, wherein each of the plurality of registration data sets includes a destination name and a phone number of the destination;
grouping the plurality of registration data sets into blocks; and
displaying at least a part of each of the plurality of registration data sets in units of blocks in a display mode.